Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

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There are old thieves and bold thieves, but there are no old, bold thieves, at least not after they poke a Daemon with a stick.

[X] Try to get the Purple reinforcements to try to help you capture the daemon
-[X] Roland switches to Diplomat's Presence to help deal with the Purple agents.
 
How much lung power does Roland has for a hue and cry?

There's already plenty of trouble as it is but with a daemon sighted just go medieval on the blighter by sounding the alarm to focus attention on it while leading everyone else to focus on it.
 
I'm imagining the leader of the Purples' reaction to it all. Let's say the daemon does get captured. He does a scene from the godfather because his men got hurt or killed and is close to declaring a vendetta and then Roland says a daemon did it and brang proof.

His u-turn to that will be priceless and instead would just settle for blood money.
 
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This daemon seems abhorrent enaugh to me that even thugs will understand that this is some kind of fiend (and thug from interlude understood that).
Hm… that is true.
On one hand, though, if we can form a united front, then this whole mess would look much nicer diplomatically.
On the other hand, time is really precious.

….but we are a diplomacy build.
Hm.

This arc seems to involve a lot of me changing my mind.
 
[X] Try to get the Purple reinforcements to try to help you capture the daemon
-[X] Roland switches to Diplomat's Presence to help deal with the Purple agents.
 
Nice change, thank you!

@Goldfish , are you sure that we need this delay? I'm afraid that daemon will run away/become invisible (he can do it either way, but I am reluctant to give him more time).
It might, but this isn't just about catching the Daemon. We can't afford to engage it when there is such a strong possibility the Purple reinforcements could attack us while we're occupied fighting the Daemon. Also, Daemons can have some really esoteric or problematic abilities, and right now we're limited to melee because the group consists of Roland, Silver, Tom, and Wanderer. If we can convince the Purple people to assist, that mitigates much of the danger in fighting it, if only by providing it more targets to focus its abilities upon.
 
It might, but this isn't just about catching the Daemon. We can't afford to engage it when there is such a strong possibility the Purple reinforcements could attack us while we're occupied fighting the Daemon.
I think their idea is that the thugs, on seeing us fighting a horrible monster, would, at minimum, not then fight us in turn. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, going by the thief's reactions.
 
[X] Try to get the Purple reinforcements to try to help you capture the daemon
-[X] Roland switches to Diplomat's Presence to help deal with the Purple agents.
 
Arc 16 Post 6: A Muddled Trail
A Muddled Trail

Twelfth of Olweje-hamba (Olweje Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"There, there's the son of a bitch!" Not you will admit the most encouraging start to your attempts at negotiations... and neither are inventive comparisons of your lineage to a goat. If you were five years younger odds are you would have run the fellow in the lead through. As is you motion with your sword to the narrow gap between the bud-brick houses where the lone of the rustlers had run though.

"There the true enemy monsters among us!" you shout and there indeed the daemon was trying to write some foul spell in its bile.

Whether it be the sight of the flaming blade or the word 'gukhra', which means something like 'monster' and something like 'plague on man', you do not know, but the lead thug looks at the thing and calls out to his fellows that you spoke truth.

Alas the demon too has heard, though you can see no ear upon its loathsome form. With a hiss like an air filled sheep's bladder being punctured the thing whirls towards you, tongue playing among its jagged teeth... and with a ripple in the air it is gone.

As you curse it Silver's eyes glow soft green and he calls out from beneath you: "It's not gone, but veiled. Strike when I say!"

So your friend bears you into battle, shield on one side, sword outstretched, guided by the insight he had gained in dreams of power. "Raise your hand... up... up left, horizontal strike." Then he turns abruptly with such force as might almost throw you from your saddle to surprise the foe and calls out with the full power of his deep lungs behind it. "Now!"

Durendal flies, an arc of fire in its wake, an arc of demon's blood frothing and foul upon the air. You hear it scream and then by the trail of ichor you mark its flight, for none of you have wings to follow where it goes, up and up, into the clear blue skies of summertime to wreak to wreak who knows what evil upon the world of man.

A hush falls on the company that had so recently been drawn in mortal battle, the sight of a demon fleeing, the sound of a talking horse more than enough to cool the blood even as it bewildered the mind.

The man at the forefront of the Purple reinforcements bears their colors, or perhaps it is better to say bore them. What must once have been a vivid purple sash, of the kind only the highborn are known to lightly bear had been stained with dirt and blood, with other less recognizable substances until it was more of a dull grayish-brown with just enough of the old color to stand out.

"Well ain't that the shit!" the man spits over his shoulder, a kind of warding, or call to his gods perhaps to bring good fortune. "D'you bring that thing here sell sword?"

Odds are it had been more interested in you than in the goats, but you are not about to say so now that you finally have a chance to talk top one of his ilk who is not minded to rob you or fight you.

"That sort do not come at the behest of men, but only on their own foul errands. None but fools think they are the masters of the Neverborn," you reply instead. "I come to bring word to your leader than there is much evil and confusion between us, the mark of one who has stolen from his coffers and almost cost me a dear friend."

"You call one of the Highborn friend man of the sword?" the thug asks as more of his fellows come closer, but though these are no less rough company, clay-footed, some in the city call them, those who walk barefoot in the mud of the Kime.

"I call Odorin Koire that yes," you reply, sheathing Durendal. For his part Tom does not look the least pleased to be lowering his spear and as for Wanderer... well you are just glad Tom managed to get him to fight the thieves when you did

"Heard of that." He looks around at his men and then chooses a boy, no more than fourteen if you were to guess and twitchy with it. "Broke Tooth, go get Arram and see what the hell's going on..."

***​

As it happened you were right about Arram's back being broken from the blow, though the fellow who had summoned him does not seem that torn up about the fact. So it is with less surprise than he perhaps expected that you greet the belated introduction of: "Kefele Akumu, now what's this about you and I sharing a foe and where in the hells did that Neverborn came from? You talked like a priest about 'em, but that don't answer my questions?"

The rough speech belies the hall you had been invited into, thick with the aroma of mint tea, flat bread and soft cheese set before you with a side of dates. The curtains, actually purple and much cleaner than some of the clothes your interlocutor was wearing dance in the evening breeze. There is a kind of swagger in the grime and the blood you now realize, like a veteran knight might count a dented shield more precious than one freshly painted.

What do you reply?

[] Admit that the Neverborn might have something to do with you

[] Claim ignorance, for all you know those thieves might have been under the hand of someone mad enough to deal with their ilk

[] Write in


OOC: Tying to do both things at once guaranteed that the cacodaemon would be able to go invisible, but luckily for you Silver has magesight and even more luckily... this. You wounded the thing enough to make it clear it was there, but of course you have no wings
 
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Good job, Silver! He gets my vote for MVP of the day.

I don't see why we should claim ignorance here, but neither should we take the blame for surprise!Daemons. The things have been popping up all over the place, after all. They've probably been active in Orinilu for at least as long as they were on Korman.

[X] "I could not guess at what Hell those creatures might have crawled out of, but they're here now, active in the world of man and acting to sow discord and conflict wherever they appear."
-[X] "We have personally witnessed them working to bring war to the allied clans of the far north, on the edge of the Whitelands, and a group of them even managed to possess the princes of Korman and seize the kingdom for themselves, at least for a short time. In both cases, the Fellowship of Saint Nicholas played some small part in fighting the Neverborn. We also have word from trusted allies that similar Neverborn plots are active far to the south in the vicinity of the Inaura Empire."

--[X] "Given that the Neverborn keep cropping up wherever civilization thrives, it is no surprise they would be in Orinilu as well. How long they've been here, and what they've done during that time, those are the greater questions."
 
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So..... it turned out well enough to allay total blame for now.

Shame about the daemon getting away but the performance done should handwave any suspicions for now. I do see blood money as restitution only for the mess.
 
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